Depression & Mental Illness

[Steve85]

33 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Was that your 1st redundancy?

Not the first time, i've been made redundant once before, but there was no issue last time because it was just me and my girlfriend (now wife). Now though, my wife was working part time and we have two children. It didn't help that it was kind of my dream job, and I loved it. It was also handled very, very poorly by the company (they shut an entire office, we all had different end dates, sworn to secrecy etc etc).

I told my psychologist that part of the problem was, I got into a "loop" of negative thinking about that redundancy. What will I do for a job, how will we pay bills/eat etc. The totally stupid thing is, we have enough savings to last quite some time and not only that we have to GTRs that we could sell for money. 

I was super fixated on the negative aspects, thinking i'd never be able to find a job, worried about money, worried about our future. It is one of the things i discuss constantly with my psychologist, I was concentrating too hard on "what ifs" and theoretical situations. Instead, in the last month or two, i'm focusing more on what i can do and what I can change. Ironically, after panicking, it turns out my skill set is sought after, especially as a private contractor.

I've been silly, but as I mentioned above, I just couldn't see the forest for the trees. Right now, i'm very happy, have a degree of freedom in my work like never before and am able to better balance work and life. It's all come good, I just need to see some of the positives of actions and not always jump to the negative side of my thinking.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Amazing result Steve, glad to hear everything worked out.

Being humans, we are attracted (by nature) to negativity, e.g. bad news, bad incidence etc. We always remember the bad memories and not so much the good.

[Steve85]

13 hours ago, DouglasHayes said:

I have never been in depression but sometimes I fell very anxious and angry. Once I broke my phone cause I was so angry that just threw it. To fix it cost a half of the price! Occasionally I've got a feeling that everyone without me will fell better. It's realy hard for me to take all these feelings under control and I'm considering about psychologist.

Steve85

Maybe you've got some piece of advice for me how to overcome all of this?

Hi Douglas. Thanks for posting.

Most people who suffer from Depression have anxiety in some way, shape or form, for me it was Flying, and being late to appointments (I really feel that time pressure in my life). 

I would consider a couple of steps that might help you out:

• Get out and about during the day (a walk at lunchtime or while on a call can help immensely). If possible walk to ride or walk to walk, even if it means just jumping off the train one station early (I understand that isn't always applicable though).
• Consider meditation/mindfulness activities that you can start. Yoga, meditation or anything that involves self reflection could help. 
• Try to learn about anxiety and in particular attempt to identify how you can be triggered (even a basic understanding helps). 
• Cut down on coffee. (This one was hard for me, i went from 3 double shots a day to one, at first I was sluggish and felt rough, but I got through it). Coffee in the morning isn't terrible but late coffee can affect your sleep pattern/quality.
• Also for me, overthinking things and playing out hypothetical situations was really bad. If you also do this, try to identify the chances of this happening (normally for me it was very low) and only apply the same amount of energy to that scenario as it's likelihood to becoming a reality. (Google Occam's Razor for more details on this one).

There are some free apps and websites that might help you out:

https://www.mindful.org/free-mindfulness-apps-worthy-of-your-attention/

http://understandinganxiety.wayahead.org.au/getting-help/helpful-websites/

 

It may still be worth consulting a psychologist as they have a neutral view of you and your thought pattern. For me this is a big bonus as my psychologist can point out when I am being too harsh on my self and help me to correct some of my thought patterns. 

If you can do just one of the things above (actions or use an app or see a psychologist) you might find you start to improve your mental well being.

I've PM'd you as well. Let me know if I can be of assistance. 
All the best. Steve.

[KiwiRS4T]

On 9/18/2019 at 12:23 AM, DouglasHayes said:

I have never been in depression but sometimes I fell very anxious and angry. Once I broke my phone cause I was so angry that just threw it. To fix it cost a half of the price! Occasionally I've got a feeling that everyone without me will fell better. It's realy hard for me to take all these feelings under control and I'm considering about psychologist.

Steve85

Maybe you've got some piece of advice for me how to overcome all of this?

Good answer from Steve - all I want to add is see if you can find someone you can talk these things over with. Posting here is a start and don't rule out seeing a psychologist but other counselors can help and its even worth mentioning it to your GP.

[Steve85]

Hi all who are on this thread (and anyone else reading this).

Just a quick update to let you know i'm doing very well.
Through time spent with my physiologist we've narrowed a couple of issues down and even managed to solve a couple.

Most of my problems stem from communication,or lack thereof. I'm still working through it all, but there is a now a path to solving this. 
It helps that my work life has calmed down considerably and I am enjoying the work I am doing. It's wonderful to be respected and appreciated in the workplace again. 

As always, i'm here to chat if you like, and you can find me on the internet elsewhere without much difficulty if this isn't your preferred internet forum. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays if we don't chat before then!  

[CeJay]

Always good to talk about mental health, I've had my own issues, but sought help and dealing with lifes challenges as they come.

[DivHunter]

 

On 8/5/2019 at 11:33 AM, Steve85 said:

I suffer from depression. I am pretty apprehensive just putting it out there. But it feels like it's important for me to talk about this issue. To see that other people may be going through or have experienced the same thing, and mostly just to get this out of my head out into the open. 

From what I can tell, I've gone downhill mentally for the last 5 years and have  previously managed to get myself out of dark places, until very recently, when several factors combined to really stop me in my tracks. 

I should point out that I have never wanted to harm myself or to kill myself, not once did these seem like viable options for me. Rather, i suffered from lethargy and apathy. I really, really struggled to get out of bed, to engage with my children properly (I always looked after their well being, every single shred of my motivation was used to further my career and to try to keep going. Having depression doesn't mean you always try to throw yourself off a bridge every chance or jump in front of traffic. It has other forms of depleting you and making life feel like one big chore. 

I have felt for a very long time that life was just one very hard slog, almost like moving through knee deep water. It just seemed too hard to be possible to be happy. I really struggled to motivate myself to do anything on the weekends and always took shortcuts where I shouldn't have (dumping kids in front of TV for example). For me I felt frustrated and angry and just annoyed generally with the state of my immediate world and that of the world in a broad context. I found myself getting angry at things I can't control and annoyed that no one else cared for it either.

I am currently on a very low level dose of anti-depressant and am engaging a physiologist for assistance. These have teamed to help me to understand that the way I think and the severity of my own personal monologue (or voice in my head) is not normal and is rather destructive. While i try very hard to nurture and to assist other people who are learning or need assistance, I would be ruthless on my own efforts at life and where i would tell a colleague or child to keep trying and watch their progress as they improve, if I made the same errors I would be brutal in my own mind, telling myself I was not worth the time and bother that I was putting into the activity. 

I guess I wanted to put this out there, to let other people know that even though everything looks perfect in my life on paper, sometimes it isn't that easy. If anyone else suffers through these types of things, please feel free to comment here, tell us your story and try to help change attitudes that depression is somehow your failing and you are at fault. Sometimes things just happen and we don't deal with them in the best of ways. 

Of course, if you prefer, you can DM me here (i'm not a counselor or anything, I work in IT, but I can listen and don't judge) sometimes people just need a friendly ear.

 

 

Thanks for starting this thread.

 

On 8/6/2019 at 8:46 AM, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Must also add, working in IT (with devs, dev ops, infra, etc.) doesn't help. They're the most negative karnts on the planet.

The only semi positive IT pricks I've worked with are those working in digital/media agencies because all they do is drink all day or rack up lines of coke.

Hey, I resemble that remark

 

On 8/6/2019 at 8:23 PM, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Pick up some random activity you wouldn't normally do such as yoga, learning an instrument, cooking classes (not BBQ classes, too blokey).

For me personally, breaking habits, stop trying to help others all the time and being somewhat selfish has improved my mental state.

Being in the service side of IT, you're always trying to help, serve, deliver and meet people's bullshit expectations. That then often transmits into day to day life as well.

Also, go to a skid pan. Somehow that always cheers me up sliding around lololol (cheaper than track days).

That's definitely what I would describe as a spiraling secondary trigger to really get me in a shitty space

 

On 12/16/2019 at 10:28 AM, Steve85 said:

Hi all who are on this thread (and anyone else reading this).

Just a quick update to let you know i'm doing very well.
Through time spent with my physiologist we've narrowed a couple of issues down and even managed to solve a couple.

Most of my problems stem from communication,or lack thereof. I'm still working through it all, but there is a now a path to solving this. 
It helps that my work life has calmed down considerably and I am enjoying the work I am doing. It's wonderful to be respected and appreciated in the workplace again. 

As always, i'm here to chat if you like, and you can find me on the internet elsewhere without much difficulty if this isn't your preferred internet forum. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays if we don't chat before then!  

Great to hear.

 

I haven't put much information here for quite a while regarding my situation but having just had a pretty shit week or so this seems like a good idea.

 

It was quite the decade for me personally. Got together and married my wife, had a great time. She got me to travel a tonne more than I ever had which was awesome. In 2016 our son was born, three weeks later on the second day of me being back at work my wife had a massive seizure and was rushed to Casey Hospital. They did tests over and over for brain damage (pull this, squeeze that etc) which she had no trouble with but should have given us a clue especially after a CAT scan - we were told she either had a massive stroke or had brain cancer and she needed to go to Monash Clayton. I didn't envy that Dr. having to deliver the news.

MRI confirmed brain cancer of some form, initially thought to be astrocytoma but subsequent surgery which may have been unnecessary or at least no where near as required later revealed it is oligodendroglioma. A slow growing cancer, probably there from childhood.

Unfortunately after the major surgery (awake craniotomy, not sure if I could have dealt with that) there was significant rehab, her left side has never been back to 100% but she powered through rehab like a champ. Being unable to care for our son the way she wanted caused her a lot of distress, still does in some ways as she is on four anti-convulsants but still has complex-partial seizures with each one it kicks the can of being allowed to drive 12 months down the road so she feels robbed of her freedom.

So this can give me pretty significant things to be worried about and there are points where my anxiety and stress can be overwhelming. I think scanxiety with my wife going in for her regular MRI snuck up and pushed me into that shit spiral and I ended up having a panic attack at 2AM the other morning. The timing is important both because I have immense trouble getting back to sleep and sleep is very important for controlling seizures so waking my wife kills me. Jesus does that ruin you and it feeds into itself so well being unable to effectively care for my family being so absolutely exhausted there were times it felt like I couldn't move my limbs but then I can't sleep or eat. Getting back to it now and back at work today not feeling too bad, just tired. Seeing my GP today and organising some more sessions with a psychologist.

Earlier in the last three years I was so focused on my family's care that I would ignore and push through pretty significant episodes which really has only made things worse. I wish I had the foresight to organise more professional support for myself earlier, I think not wanting to admit how f**ked things were was part of that. My family has been an incredible support network for me, couldn't do this without them. Work has been very understanding all along as well.

 

So that is where I am at. All the plans we had sort of went on hold if not out the window in 2016. It cut a huge chunk of our income with my wife only being able to work one day a week instead of returning to work full time so that's another stress point.

My son goes to pre-kindy this year so that's exciting, he's pretty pumped for it and he gets to stay at nana's and auntie's places pretty frequently and has a great time.

 

So yeah, everyone has a bad time sometimes but these days there are services to help you out so you should give them all a go.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Sorry to hear about your situation @DivHunter but push on man, you're doing a solid job keeping the family together and supporting one another.

The world is an interesting place, so how our futures are written. Just be positive! I hope you're wife gets better, and I hope everything works out for you man.

When in doubt, dose it and skids.

[DivHunter]

5 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Sorry to hear about your situation @DivHunter but push on man, you're doing a solid job keeping the family together and supporting one another.

The world is an interesting place, so how our futures are written. Just be positive! I hope you're wife gets better, and I hope everything works out for you man.

When in doubt, dose it and skids.

Will investigate making the MiTo 1.4 MultiAir Turbo Benzina dose appropriately.

[Steve85]

20 hours ago, DivHunter said:

I haven't put much information here for quite a while regarding my situation but having just had a pretty shit week or so this seems like a good idea.

100% a good idea to get it out of your head and onto this page. 

I'm very sorry to hear about your situation lately. It sounds like you're doing a stellar job holding everything together. 

You should make sure you take a break from everything once in a while (that's pretty hypocritical coming from me), but it will do you a world of good to just be able to relax for a couple of hours and concentrate on yourself. I know that's not easy and it actually takes planning and organisation (drop kids off to grand-parents etc). 

If nothing else, know that you can always hit me up here or on any other social media to vent. I'm no expert, but I listen.

Keep it up. I'm secretly cheering you on!

[DivHunter]

4 hours ago, Steve85 said:

100% a good idea to get it out of your head and onto this page. 

I'm very sorry to hear about your situation lately. It sounds like you're doing a stellar job holding everything together. 

You should make sure you take a break from everything once in a while (that's pretty hypocritical coming from me), but it will do you a world of good to just be able to relax for a couple of hours and concentrate on yourself. I know that's not easy and it actually takes planning and organisation (drop kids off to grand-parents etc). 

If nothing else, know that you can always hit me up here or on any other social media to vent. I'm no expert, but I listen.

Keep it up. I'm secretly cheering you on!

That is something the psychologist I have seen (govt subsidized sessions) has talked about, still having your own things and space in your life.

[Steve85]

Hey all, 

I'm still lurking around the forums, still living the dream that is 2020. What a year it has been... so far. ?

Mental health wise, my depression is still existing... boo! Most days are fine, but every so often it is a struggle. Being cooped up inside has not been at all helpful and my normal walking areas are full of people who weren't there previously, so I've been trying to avoid that. 

Working from home has always been fine, however, I now have a workmate (my wife) who is also at home. It's been a little trying, having to share the house all day, everyday. It has meant that I have struggled with having my own space and getting the housework done (i taken to scheduling vacuuming in her Calendar).

I'm currently in the process of changing over medications as sleep and snoring appeared to be weird side effects of the first set of medication. Hoping for better results from the new ones. Otherwise, not too bad. I have good days and bad days, for me it's about getting the bad days back under control. (It used to be 99% bad days). 

I've actually taken to avoiding the news regarding the pandemic, I feel like i burned myself out attempting to work out all our best options. We also have had to cancel our trip over to Germany (again boo!) 

In any case, i'm still kicking along. If you ever need me, you know where to find me.

[DivHunter]

I have sprained my left trapezius badly enough I can't really sleep and driving is pretty bad.

I move house in 10 days.

This is fine ?

I am actually doing pretty good really.

[Steve85]

On 7/8/2020 at 7:20 PM, DivHunter said:

I am actually doing pretty good really.

This is good news. My entire goal for 2020 is to survive. That's it... i'm setting the bar real low.

[IpoopThere4Iam]

Push through it mate - life is a clusterf**k sometimes. You're stronger than you'll ever know - and when the time comes - that strength will empower, and astound you. I'm dealing with this myself, having a passion / project ( my 32 coupe ) has been invaluable. Things are only insurmountable, when you doubt your ability to surmount them. Life is a relentless conflict - don't give up the fight

#Lonesoldier.

 

( Edit ) If boost makes you feel, like it does me - get out there and feel some boost. Nothing makes me smile wider!

Edited August 16, 2020 by IpoopThere4Iam
n/a

[Steve85]

So quick update. I'm still lurking around... 

I've actually just returned from a sleep study as it appears I do not sleep particularly well. This tends to fit with sufferers of depression as it it a fact that those who have depression tend to have reduced sleep quality.

Being in Melbourne, I am currently in Stage 4 Lockdown. I can honestly say this sucks big time. I'm here at home with the children and my wife all day, every day. 
My wife is being very supportive but as the primary worker, she gets a nice office in the house, while I get to share with the children. I love my children very much, but holy moly. I've had enough of them for 2020. There is no escape from them and they are ever more demanding day on day.

If you're in lockdown too and you read this, get in touch, let's swap horror stories of partners/children etc.

My motto at this point it simply to take it day by day. I am not planning much other than the children's activities as best I can the day before. I am very much waiting to be released from lockdown to handball the children to a grandparent and do nothing, or anything. 

Happy 2020 to all. /s

[DivHunter]

Time is running out for 2020 but it keeps on giving.

I did successfully move house and it has been pretty good. I received good news with work being bought by an ASX listed company and I kept the same job with more pay and the boss took very good care of me with shares and what not coming my way as part of the sale. So good times.

However at the same time my wife has had more surgery which was successful but showed that the cancer is replicating at enough of a rate that she will begin radiation  next week for 7 weeks (daily treatments) then chemo for months after that. Only found out the start point today. $25000 treatment but only out of pocket $2500 by the end, thanks medicare 👍

[GTSBoy]

55 minutes ago, DivHunter said:

However at the same time my wife has had more surgery which was successful but showed that the cancer is replicating at enough of a rate that she will begin radiation  next week for 7 weeks (daily treatments) then chemo for months after that. Only found out the start point today. $25000 treatment but only out of pocket $2500 by the end, thanks medicare 👍

Ouch. Please take any comfort you can from the fact that we do send good thoughts towards people we hear about in these situations - even if we're too far away to do much else.

[Unzipped Composites]

1 hour ago, DivHunter said:

Time is running out for 2020 but it keeps on giving.

I did successfully move house and it has been pretty good. I received good news with work being bought by an ASX listed company and I kept the same job with more pay and the boss took very good care of me with shares and what not coming my way as part of the sale. So good times.

However at the same time my wife has had more surgery which was successful but showed that the cancer is replicating at enough of a rate that she will begin radiation  next week for 7 weeks (daily treatments) then chemo for months after that. Only found out the start point today. $25000 treatment but only out of pocket $2500 by the end, thanks medicare 👍

 

Your ability to pick up on the positive points in your life in amongst all the soul-destroying shit going on as well is massive, so props to you sir. 

 

My wife was an oncology nurse for 9 years. Lots of people would ask her how she could work in oncology and not crumble into complete depression, and I was always extremely proud of her response to that question - not only did she get to be a part of an experience in peoples lives that most don't ever have, but she got to make it better. And she would always say that yes, cancer is a shit time and it's a bitch and nobody should ever have to go through that, but not every moment of it is bad. There are some good times in there too; making friends with the hospital staff, connecting to your loved ones in a way that people who don't have cancer never will, etc. And she loved being one of those bright spots on a very dark journey for people. It all finally got a bit much for her last year and she switched to ED, but she talks quite often of going back one day.

 

I guess my point here is that I genuinely hope the best for you and your wife, I hope that she recovers and you are able to pick up on some of those plans you had in 2016. But in the meantime, keep picking up on the positive experiences you have along the way, and let them lift you, don't let yourself reject the positive feelings because of the weight of the situation. Oncology staff are some of the most amazing people on this planet and your wife is going to receive a lot of love and support from extremely capable people. 

 

 

 

On a more jovial, unrelated note - almost exactly 8 years on, and Tom Hardy is still a majestic man beast that makes me moist.

[DivHunter]

Last day of radiation